How to Manage Individual Forgetting: Analysis and Comparison of Different Knowledge Management Strategies

The creation, transfer and retention of knowledge in an organization has always been the focus of knowledge management researchers; however, one aspect of the dynamics of knowledge, i.e., forgetting, has received comparatively limited attention. To fill this research gap, we extend the basic simulation model proposed by March by incorporating forgetting and three knowledge management strategies, i.e., personalization, codification, and mixed, to explore the impacts of different knowledge management strategies and forgetting on the organizational knowledge level. The simulation results not only clarify the specific measures used to manage individual forgetting in each knowledge management strategy but also identify the boundary conditions under which knowledge management strategies should be adopted under different conditions.